Still Waters
by AmazingGraceless
Summary: Cho x Harry, QFL round 1, 906 words.


Cho glanced down from her broom. Again, in the bleachers, Harry Potter was sitting with his omniculars, steadily trained on her. She'd deduced long ago that he wasn't doing it for strategy. Or at least, not Quidditch strategy. Even if he was. . . She was terrible now. She just could not stand the grief welling inside. It demanded to be felt. She threw everything into the sport, into the D.A., but everything was not enough anymore.

"Chang, why don't you take five?" said the Captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team (she'd forgotten his name, it was so hard to focus on memories other than him.)

"Um, okay, sure," she sniffled. She gently touched down on the green and went into the locker rooms. She would probably get kicked off soon anyway. It did not matter, it felt like.

All she could think about was what it would have been like if he lived. Maybe in that world, she would not feel so guilty about her attraction towards Harry. He was younger, that was true. Not exactly a turn-on. But she'd always liked men out of her age range, even if that meant all the predecessors were older.

But what would Cedric think?

That was the thought that kept her from acting on any possible feelings she had. Or would have. Or would have had. All of it was not worth it; the trouble it would cause in the end.

When she stepped out of the locker rooms, on the path back to the castle, she saw Harry, just waiting there for her.

"'Lo, Harry," she mumbled.

"Hullo, Cho," he replied, the first genuine smile on his face that she'd seen in a while. "Leaving early?"

"Just don't feel well." She let her long black hair flow in her face, obscuring it for all who she wished to hide from. "Surely you understand."

"Oh." He paused. "I think I do."

So they walked in silence for the first bit. He then spoke next.

"Do you ever dream about it? Because I do all the time," he said.

Cho recalled nightmares of the legendary green flash of light, illuminating her golden boy for one last time, the sobs and screams of his father, intertwined with that feeling of drowning like she did during the lake task.

"I s'pose."

She veered off-course towards the lake. She felt an attraction to the place ever since the Second Task, an attraction that had only grown after Cedric's death.

Harry patiently followed her there, and sat down beside her on the lakeside. The long reeds danced in the breeze. They were bright green from recent rainfall. Almost as green as Harry's eyes-

Stop that, she scolded. It's too soon for any of this. It's too soon.

But they sat in silence still, gazing out over the lake. The water reflected the sky near-perfectly, and was as still as a mirror with no clue as to the turmoil in the fathoms below. How serene.

She could almost picture herself floating out there as gracefully as a swan.

"I feel him here," Cho said after a moment. "I guess that's because here, that's when I learned he really loved me."

"Because he saved your life." Harry's tone was indecipherable. Like the water, there were so many meanings below the surface, waiting for Cho's interpretation. Yet Cho did not wish to interpret. Not yet.

"I s'pose," she repeated. She took a moment to structure her thoughts together. "How do you stay together? I don't know how to stop thinking about it!"

"Well, I have friends," Harry said. "Ron and Hermione. You have Marietta."

"Yes, but she's my only friend," Cho explained. "All of the others left me."

"Their loss," Harry said with a shrug. "You're pretty cool."

She could tell that he was holding back much more gushy thoughts. She appreciated him not blurring those out.

"You really think?" she fished.

"Absolutely."

He smiled again, and it was infectious. She managed a smile for him, but then looked back to the lake.

"You aren't disrespecting his memory," Harry finally said.

"Huh?"

"By sitting here with me," Harry explained.

"I'd hope not," she joked. "That would be a bit over the top, don't you think? Being jealous because I'm sitting next to another member of the opposite sex! That would be disrespectful to his memory."

He nodded. "Cedric was a good man."

"He was just a boy," Cho murmured, shaking her head. "Just like you. So good, so brave, but too young for your fate."

Harry shrugged again. "I'll do what I have to."

"But children should never have to bear the burdens of war, like you have," Cho said. "That's what we both are, anyway. We're both just children, just kids. We shouldn't have to live like this."

"Yet somehow, we do," Harry said. "And I've got to defeat him, it's got to be me. But Cedric never should have been there."

"I know," she said. "Yet it was his own stupidly noble idea that got him killed."

She held back a sob. She hated speaking so. . . Badly of the dead, yet it seemed to be one of the only ways out of her dark hole of sadness. She gathered up her courage to the sticking place and turned to Harry.

"Want to join me at the Quidditch store next Hogsmeade visit?" she asked. "I know Puddifoot's didn't work out but-"

"Yes."


End file.
